The Book of John
by lexi'ssorryforthis
Summary: What the hell was John Winchester even DOING when he was missing, anyway? This is what I think happened. Spoilers: definitely for Season 1, eventually as late as Season 5. Infinite thanks to the Supernatural Wiki!
1. Jericho

John Winchester had been hunting things that go bump in the night for a long time. Long enough to know that not everyone comes back out of the dark. Long enough to know that sometimes, you find what you were looking for.

Long enough to know that's not always such a good thing.

He was in Jericho, hunting a ghost that he just realized was a Woman in White, and about to get a bite to eat before getting together the needed supplies for the salt and burn tonight. A waiter took his order and brought him a beer, and he opened his journal to make notes for the next hunt (campers were disappearing in Blackwater Ridge, Colorado, and John was thinking it was his kind of thing) while he waited for his food. He looked up, though, when someone took the seat opposite him.

"Hey, Winchester! What brings you to town?" It was Jefferson, an older hunter from the Roadhouse. John hadn't seen him in years, not since his fallout with Ellen and the death of her husband.

"What the hell do you think?" he said with mock gruffness. They both laughed and stood up for a fond and long-overdue hug. It was good to be around friends, whenever any were alive to be around.

"So, what's the great John Winchester hunting this time?" Jefferson asked when they sat back down. "Seriously, how far back in newspaper records did you have to go to put a hunt together in a town like this?"

"'Bout twenty years or so."

"And how many occurrences of the… what was it again?"

"A woman in white."

Jefferson let out an impressed whistle. "How many did she make disappear?"

"Ten."

"You're obsessed, man."

"No, I have a job to do, and I make sure it gets done." They'd had this discussion before; John didn't think that Jefferson was undedicated or unskilled in any way, but the older hunter tended to focus on only the more recent phenomena, while John himself went after things that had long (and often very hidden) track records.

Jefferson leaned back in his chair, chuckling lightly. "Man, I have missed you, Winchester. It's been way too long."

"That it has, Jeff."

"So how's that kid of yours these days?" John raised an eyebrow as he took a swig of beer. Usually he and Jefferson didn't talk about family; Jefferson must have been going through some fresh sort of hell lately.

"Dean's fine, I just talked to him yesterday on the phone. He's off working some voodoo gig in New Orleans, told him to go – "

"No, Johnny-boy." Jefferson's tone turned to ice as he leaned forward onto the table and his eyes went black. "How's that other kid? How's Sammy?"

**AN: euoeiuroaieurwiuwdksaj okay I started something that's not a one-shot! Also not entirely Sam-centric, at least for now (I won't be switching POV's or anything, but John's story is going to be heavily influenced by the Yellow Eyes and Sammy story). Basically I got really bothered about how I haven't seen anything about John 1) in a positive light, and I don't think he was such a bad father as some of the things I read make it seem and 2) that explains what the hell he was DOING while Sam and Dean were looking for him.**

**I'm still working on those Cage headcannons and something else about why Sam didn't look for Dean after S7 – but I've been making myself rewatch everything from the beginning and I'm still on S1, so I decided I'd focus on this for now and then focus on the other things as I get there in the series, since it's really difficult to write later characterization when I'm watching from before character development gets anywhere.**

**Also, Jefferson is the first OC since that NJ waitress in "Shuffle" that felt right. And no, I have no idea where he came from.**

**Reviews are like pie, my friends!**


	2. Dean

John froze, one hand still holding his beer to his mouth. Before he could process much more than _… Sammy?_, though, not-Jefferson launched across the diner table and knocked both of them to the floor. Other patrons turned from their lunches in shock to watch the two men punch and bite and kick. One of the waiters tried to pull the demon off of John, but was elbowed in the face and stepped back several paces with a dazed expression and a bloody nose. Now the demon had John in a strangling grip while the hunter reached blindly around for his journal, but the book that had all his exorcisms had been on the overturned table and now lay a few feet away on the floor. Suddenly, the demon's grip went slack and he slumped sideways, revealing a timid teenage boy standing behind him holding one of the diner chairs in the air. John took advantage of the moment to lunge for his book and find the page he was looking for. "_Regna terrae, cantate Deo, psallite Domino_," John read, and not-Jefferson froze like he was going to be sick. "_Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus_," he continued the exorcism, ignoring the shocked and confused stares of his fellow diners that hadn't run screaming from the place. He stopped, though, when the demon started yelling, "You can't stop it, Winchester! I'm not the only one! You can't stop all of us!"

John stepped closer to the demon, whom was now lying on the floor, having stopped convulsing now that the ritual was paused, grabbed his collar, and pulled him up so John was in his face, "What the hell are you talking about?"

The demon laughed – a much different laugh than Jefferson's easy chortle – and spat back a reply that sent a whole course of shivers down John's spine, "All your lives have been preparing him for this. Get ready, Winchester. There's a storm coming."

And with that, a plume of black smoke erupted from Jefferson's mouth, out to find another innocent to possess before John could send the bastard back where it came from. Jefferson's body didn't move. "Somebody call him an ambulance," John picked up the overturned table and threw some money on it, not really caring if it met the bill or not, and left. His mind was only on one thing.

_Sammy._

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Back at the motel room, John was throwing things into bags as fast as he could. His clothes were almost all in a duffel bag; the guns were put nicely into their slots in his truck. When he had everything he needed loaded up, he looked around the room. All his work on the Constance Welch case was still tacked to the walls; John's first instinct was to take them all down and leave no trace of himself, but there was still a Woman in White to take care of, and he no longer had the time to do it.

Instead, he put up almost all of the protection charms he had with him and lined the room with salt. He would have to get Dean up here to handle the unfinished business. John dug out his book and turned to a new blank page, but stopped – he didn't know what or how much to write in case something got in that wasn't supposed to. He wasn't even sure what was happening yet! Settling for "Dean 35-111", in a circled, large print, John hid the journal in the U-bend of the pipe under the bathroom sink; his son would find it and know what to do. He'd call and leave instructions just to make sure.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Dean, I need you to get up here. Something big is starting to happen, and it's more important than Jericho. I need to try and figure out what's going on. It may… no, it definitely has something to do with Sam. Take care of Jericho, it's a Woman in White, then go to the next hunt. I can't have you too close to this right now, but be very careful, Dean. We're all in danger."

John snapped the phone shut on his son's voicemail. He hoped he was clear enough for Dean to understand but vague enough so that demons wouldn't catch up on the trail. He didn't even realize that he was driving down the same stretch of road that Constance Welch haunted, or that she was watching him as he turned left for the interstate.

**AN: Praise everything in the universe for the Supernatural Wiki, holy crap! I'm not sure if this will come up again in the story, but in my headcannon, the demon that possessed Jefferson had a hand in Jessica's death. I'm actually not sure if anyone but Azazel can do that to a person, since that's how it sounded like for the first few seasons until Brody said he had a part in it in S5. So I figured if other demons were involved, they included not-Jefferson.**

**Now the problem is that from here until halfway through the season I don't have a whole lot to work with and it becomes all headcannon. It might take longer to post because of that, but I'll try to do some research and come up with a time-table or something so I can confirm what I can and make plans based on that.**

**Thanks to missingmikey for the encouragement!**


	3. Going Dark

Four days later, John was at his storage locker in Rochester, New York, but his bag was empty. He'd zipped across the country to get here and load up on extra charms and weapons, but now that he was here he had no clue what to take. He didn't know what he was facing, he didn't know what they were planning, he didn't know anything. Except that Sam was in danger. John sighed and put a curse box back on its shelf; he needed help, and he needed it fast. Running through his contact list eliminated several potentials very quickly: Can't go to Ellen, probably not to anyone else from the Roadhouse either if Jefferson got possessed in connection to the place. The last time he'd seen Bobby Singer he threatened to shoot John with a shotgun if he ever showed up again – not that John was about to take him seriously on that, but not enough time had passed to hit up Bobby just yet. Martin was still in that mental hospital. That left Missouri, Pastor Jim, and Luther. Luther might be a better place to start – he had better supplies and was good at pulling information out of seemingly nowhere. Missouri and Jim would be more helpful if he had more to go on anyway. Plus, Luther was a lot closer to Rochester, last John had checked. He pulled out his cell phone, ignoring the missed calls from Dean, and dialed.

"John Winchester, as I live and breath!" Luther picked up on the first ring, Texas accent sharp as ever.

"Hey, Luther. Where you holed up these days?"

"I'm a little outside Perry, Maine. Cute little place, shack on a lake, abandoned. Got myself a fire and it's good as new!"

"Could…" John paused; asking for help was not his forte, "I'm hunting something, but I'm not sure what it is yet. You up for some shenanigans?"

Luther chuckled into the phone, "Last time you said that, we ended up getting chased by a rugaru halfway across Las Vegas in nothing but our boxer shorts. You wanna give me a little more intel, there, chief?"

"All I know is it's a demon," John took a breath to calm himself before saying the rest. "It's a demon, and it's after my boys."

"Oh, shit."

"Yeah. I need help, Luther." There, he said it.

"Alright, you know where I am, where are you?"

"Rochester, about a day away. I'll call you when I get close."

"Alright. Be careful, Winchester."

John had already hung up.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxx

"Luther!" Twenty-two hours later, John was pounding on the door of an isolated cabin in the middle of some woods in Maine. He looked around approvingly as he got out of his truck; although he tended to stick to more populated areas, right now it would be best to stay as far away from strangers as possible. It would mean less looking over their shoulders for demons.

"Hey, Luther, open up!" he knocked on the door again, just before a balding black man with a slight beer gut answered.

"Hey, Winchester."

"Luther." There was an awkward beat as the two men stood in the doorway.

"Well, come on in, we got work to do," Luther ushered John into the cabin, pointing him to one of the two chairs by the crackling fireplace. "So," he continued after John took his seat, "you got yourself a demon on your back, eh?"

"To put it in the simplest terms possible, yeah. Think you can figure out who it is?"

"Why don't you tell me everything, from the beginning, and we can take it from there," Luther leaned back in his chair.

"Well, a week ago I was in California hunting this vengeful spirit. I took a break to get some lunch at a diner and I saw Jefferson – he's a friend of mine - and we just talked about random crap for a while before he asked how Sam was… And when I looked up, he was possessed! So we got in a brawl – freaked out everyone there, that's for sure – and I started exorcising him and he says some stuff about how he's not the only one, and all our lives have been leading Sam somewhere? I don't know what he meant, but I do know that there's something coming after him and I need to protect my kid," John's head was in his hands when he finished, and his whole body was trembling.

"Okay, I need you to focus for a sec, John. Just focus so we can get down the demon's exact words, alright?" Luther rummaged around for a pad and paper, then sat back down. "Now, after you finished shooting the breeze, what exactly did Jefferson say?"

"He said, 'How's that kid of yours these days?' and I started answering about Dean, and then he interrupted me and said 'No, Johnny-boy. How's that other kid? How's Sammy?'" John paused and looked up, "I don't think I ever told him about Sammy at the Roadhouse. Jefferson's eyes went black just when he said the name. Luther, he's gonna go after him – "

"We can't do anything from way over on the East Coast, John. And even if we could, we couldn't do it without all the information. What else did the demon say?" Luther looked back down at his notepad.

"He said – " John's hair stood on end; he'd missed something important… "Luther, when did I tell you where Sam was?"

Luther raised his head, black eyes reflecting light from the fire. "Well, I guess you caught me, Winchester." At the same time, the fire leapt out of the fireplace and engulfed the entire cabin.

John darted for the door, but the demon slammed it shut telekinetically. _Shit, he's up on the food chain!_ Too late, John realized he'd left all his gear in the truck outside - the only weapon the hunter had on him now was his Glock, but it was useless against a demon.

Said demon had sprung up from his chair and was coming at him with fists flying. "You know, Yellow-Eyes kept saying he'd be the one to kill you," he taunted as John ducked and weaved around the assault of punches, "but I guess being the boss-man doesn't mean you're always right!" Luther's fist connected hard with John's gut, and sent him flying into the wall. "He shoulda known Bixby would want to show off if he ran into you," Luther continued, "now we have to off you ahead of schedule." John had crumpled to the floor after hitting the wall, winded from the hit he took and unable to get enough oxygen from the smoke-filled room. With the way his vision was swimming, he was willing to bet he had a concussion too. _Damn Winchester luck…_ "Oh, don't make it so easy, man!" Luther crowed triumphantly as he stepped closer, but that damn luck swung the other way a second later when one of the ceiling beams came crashing down in the blaze and landed right on top of Luther, pinning him to the ground. It seemed like the demon didn't have enough juice for superhuman strength, because instead of throwing it off, black smoke rushed out of Luther's mouth, billowed around the room for a moment, then broke through a window and rushed out into the night.

With fresh oxygen funneling in through the broken window, the blaze in the cabin took on a whole new level of fury, but John got just enough air in his lungs to get to his knees and get out. Choking on ash and smoke from the fire, he moved to check on the shell the demon left behind – but the beam had crushed Luther's chest and he was long past saving. Unable to move the beam and take the body out of the fire, John pulled Luther's knife out of his pocket and cut his forearm to mix his blood with Luther's, then finally dragged himself through the broken window into the sweet, fresh night air that was already filling with the sounds of sirens.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxx

"Hey Rick, we got a body," one of the firemen called as he walked from the smoking cabin remains.

"Think it's him?" The one called Rick answered. Both of them had eyes black as coal.

"Too badly burned to tell. We'll have to test DNA over at the lab. That's his truck out front though, for sure."

The two firemen looked towards the truck with coal black eyes. "Only one body?" Rick finally asked. The demons nodded to each other and started walking around the area, looking for places where they're prey might hide, but soon were forced to return to their façade as firemen before they could find John in the tall grasses by the lake.

From his position lying in the grass, John watched as the last of the flames were put out. Then the police loaded a body bag into the coroner's car, a tow truck came for John's abandoned pickup (_Shit, all my stuff is in that truck!_), and soon the place was quiet and lonely once more. An hour after the last car pulled away, John started making his way back towards the highway, not daring to walk on the road but staying hidden in the trees alongside. He left his phone at the burned-out cabin, with the battery thrown in the lake and the SIM card snapped in half and thrown in opposite directions – if demons were seriously tracking him, (and if John wanted them to believe he was dead) he couldn't risk a GPS tail, or for demons to possess any more of his contacts.

John finally reached the highway, and after another hour of walking he found a strip mall and stole a car from the parking lot. It was going to be a long trip to Blue Earth, Minnesota, but John was willing to bet it would be far and beyond worth it. After all, there couldn't be that many things that go bump in the night that went by the moniker Yellow-Eyes.

**AN: OH MY GOD. I was browsing the Supernatural Wiki for some research and I saw Jefferson under the character list and apparently he's an old hunter friend of John's that the boys called in "Asylum". Holy crap, I had no idea, my OC isn't even an OC HOW DID THAT HAPPEN?!**

**Oh, and while I'm on the subject, there's a Luther also – but he's a younger, Caucasian vampire, so I don't think that counts. Still, WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON?**

**Also, I know this chapter is really late. There was a day of story mapping, and then half a week of the flu where I was too sick to write, and since then I've been really busy and only able to write for an hour or two a day – I would have posted this in shorter chapters but I didn't want it to be too choppy since I'm writing a whole season's worth of material. Sorry to say, but updates to this story will probably be infrequent – but I'll try to keep them long.**


	4. Yellow Eyes

Under normal circumstances, where John's head was clear and he wasn't paranoid that everyone on the street was going to go black-eyed and try to kill him, it would have taken two days driving fourteen hours each to get from Maine to Blue Earth. But these circumstances were anything but normal, and the journey took almost a week and a half. He only took local roads and side streets, and made sure he was off the roads an hour before sundown. He ditched the stolen car from Perry when he reached Boston (but had already swapped the license plates several times by then), and stayed in the city for a day and a half to buy new clothes and a limited number of supplies to replace what he'd lost in the truck before taking a Greyhound to Philadelphia to throw off anyone following him. Instead of hitch-hiking like he normally would, John decided to walk to the last town before he hit farmland, stole the nicest car he could find (which was a lot of fun to drive, he had to admit) and drove it to the outskirts of Columbus, Ohio before switching cars again and taking it to Jim Murphy's church. Good luck to any demons following _that_ trail.

* * *

It was around three in the afternoon on a Saturday when John walked into Jim Murphy's church, and he found it mercifully empty. Not knowing where Jim had gone or how long it would take for someone to notice him, he sat in a middle pew closest to the wall of votive candles and found himself with time to think without any distractions for the first time since Jericho. Had that really been three weeks ago? It felt like a lifetime… and yet the events since then seemed jumbled together so that they only felt a day or two long. And John still didn't know anything new since he left Maine – he lost his computer when the demons took his truck, he hadn't had any time to hit a library or a church on his way even if he wasn't being extremely careful, and he'd ditched his phone. John's blood froze when he realized he'd thrown his phone away before listening to any of the voicemails Dean had left him. It wasn't the first time he'd gone missing, and unfortunately John knew that Dean would manage, but the urgency with which his eldest son had been calling him left John feeling guilty and scared. His worst fear was Dean ending up in trouble with demons because John hadn't been paying attention.

"Your boys have been looking for you," Pastor Jim's somber voice from behind him interrupted John's reverie.

"Both of them?" he turned around, and Jim nodded. John raked a hand tiredly across his face and into his hair. _Something's wrong, something is very wrong…_

"I don't usually say this, especially to you," Jim walked forward and clapped a hand on John's shoulder, "but you look like you could use a drink."

* * *

"Well… Shit." Jim said, after John went over everything, two hours, every demon test in the book, and half a bottle of Jack later. John simply nodded and took another swallow, and Jim leaned back in his chair, concentrating. "Yellow Eyes… Yellow Eyes…"

"Jim, I don't mean to derail your train of thought, but can you tell me what you know about my boys?" It came out with more emotion than John meant it to.

"Um… Well… When was the last time you spoke to Sam?"

John looked down, ashamed at how their last conversation went south, and how much time he'd allowed to pass since then. "Not since he left for school," he answered, barely a step above a whisper.

"Are you serious? You haven't had any contact with your own son for three years?" Jim, by contrast, was shouting now. "Was everything you told me about Sam at school just made up, then?" Jim remembered how John would swing by if he was hunting in the area, and he claimed Sam was doing fine whenever he was asked. Sam made the Dean's list. Sam was doing an internship at a paralegal's office. Sam had gotten a paper published in a law journal.

"No! I kept tabs on him, made sure he was safe! I just… I didn't want to…" John sighed and looked back down. "I was waiting until I was sure he would want to talk to me again."

Jim shook his head. "We both know that means you wouldn't have talked to him until you were dead. You and your boys are just too stubborn for your own good." John couldn't help but smile. "Well you're not going to like what you missed, that's for sure." The smile disappeared, and John leaned forward, face drawn, bracing himself for what he was about to hear.

"Dean got your voicemail that you left in California – or at least bits and pieces of it. You didn't even realize you were driving through that woman's hunting ground, did you? Well Dean panicked a little, and drove up to Stanford to get Sam, and the two of them took care of your Woman in White. When they got back…" Jim shook his head again, this time more mournful than judgemental. "Sam's life was really coming together for him, you know. He got a 174 on his LSATs, he had an interview for a full ride to law school that was supposed to be the Monday after he and Dean got back from Jericho – "

"What the hell do you mean, supposed to?" John interrupted in spite of himself. "What happened?"

Jim poured each of them another glass of the whiskey before continuing. "His girlfriend died. Sam got to their apartment… She was dead on the ceiling, John. She burned up, Sam only made it out because Dean came back and dragged him away."

John forgot how to breathe. He forgot everything but Jim's words echoing in his brain, "dead on the ceiling… dead on the ceiling…" He couldn't hear anything over the pounding of his heart, but the glass of whiskey flew into the wall and shattered, and now nothing was safe from John's whirlwind of rage as he swept books off of Jim's desk and threw anything that would break. Mary was dead, now Sam's girlfriend was dead by the same hand…_ I should have been there, I should have found Sam right when I left Jefferson, I should have known, I should have done something, anything! It's my fault… It's my fault… It's my fault…_ Not everyone can be saved, John knew from experience, but Sam and his girlfriend deserved better than that.

Soon though, John's fit of rage ran out of steam, and he sank back into his chair and put his face in his hands, mumbling something along the lines of an apology and a promise to pay for the damage. Jim, during this whole time, hadn't moved an inch.

"John, this isn't your fault… Yeah, you said all that out loud," Jim amended when John's head snapped up. "This isn't anyone's fault but that demon, and you know it. We'll find that damned sonovabitch, and we'll take care of it. You're not alone in this, okay?"

John sighed, "Okay. But not tonight. I just… Let's give the girl a night of respect, yeah?" Jim nodded. "What was her name?"

"Jessica Moore. The way Dean tells it, she was smart, and she was pretty, and she loved Sam a lot."

With sad smiles and tears in their eyes, the two hunters toasted Sam's dead girlfriend, and prayed she had a nice afterlife.

* * *

Ultimately, it took six days of research to find the identity of Yellow Eyes. That afternoon, Jim was skimming through an ancient, weathered tome of Christian Bible parables in Latin, while John was scouring websites for ancient Aztec lore. Jim was muttering to himself and flipping pages; John was dead silent except for the occasional mouse click. Books and papers and printouts of rejected theories were scattered everywhere.

"Holy crap."

John looked up from the computer. "What?"

Jim just shook his head a little and shuffled around the discarded papers on the floor to the bookshelf, scanning briefly until he found what he was looking for. The _Holy Bible_.

"That's what you needed? Did you actually find something or did you think of your next sermon, preacher?" John was never the most patient of men.

"Shut up, I'm looking… Enoch… Enoch… Here!" Jim pointed at a passage triumphantly, and John stepped over to get a better look.

"…Azazel?"

"I think so," Jim snatched up the Latin book again. "We weren't going to get anywhere just by looking for demons, so I tried a different angle. Your story got me thinking that demons have been after Sam pretty much from the get-go, which in this case would be Mary's death. So I looked for references to demons that went after kids and their mothers… And I found a reference to 'Azazel's yellow eyes' in here," he pointed to the phrase in the Latin book, "So I went to the Book of Enoch and, yeah, he's the leader of the Grigori - a host of fallen angels that marry mortal women and have kids with them. Assuming the real target of these attacks was Sam, I think it fits."

John was quiet. He'd always suspected that Sam was the true target of the attack that killed Mary, but to have it confirmed like this… Suddenly, his attention snapped back. "Wait… Fallen angels that marry and have kids with mortal women? Does that mean – I mean, you don't think – Mary wouldn't… Sam…?" he sputtered. _What the hell?_

Jim's eyes went wide. "No! No, well, not exactly… Look, Sam looks and acts so much like you it's impossible for him to be anyone's kid _but_ yours. I think maybe this is one of those things that gets mistranslated and no one really catches it. If we can get a copy in the original Hebrew, or maybe even Latin, we'll probably get a better understanding of what this is."

"So you don't have one?" John was more than a little perplexed that a research-focused hunter like Jim wouldn't have a damn Latin Bible lying around.

"Lent it to some hunter named Gordon," was the wan reply. "Don't worry, we'll just go to the library."

* * *

Unfortunately, Blue Earth, Minnesota was not actually that large of a place, and the library in town didn't have any copies of the Bible in a language other than English. Empty-handed, the hunters returned to Jim's study and looked again through the volumes that were already there. Jim went back to his bible, and John found an encyclopedia, and they got to work. It took all of the rest of the day and into the next afternoon before John was satisfied he had a good base of research. They never did find a copy of the lore in Latin, but they did find a news article from the seventies about a preacher who slaughtered his parish a little outside of Baltimore who claimed to have been possessed by a demon with the same name. John figured with everything they had, investigating what was left of the church was the best thing to do next.

"John, I can't come with you. I have a lot of things going on here, and some hunters that might need help," Jim said as they were packing the research into boxes.

"Jim, I don't even have my truck! I can't take all this on a bus!"

"So we'll call someone, is what I'm saying. You and Bobby still aren't speaking, right?" John nodded. "Okay, how about Elkins?"

"Elkins?" John had only worked with him once, years ago, on a vampire hunt he'd kept secret from the boys. He wasn't sure if Elkins remembered him, but he could see them working together again. "Can we trust him with something this big?"

"That hunter has saved most of the asses in this community more than once. I've taken to calling him whenever shit really hits the fan lately – he's one of the only ones we can trust with something this big," was the stern reply.

"Damn, preacher, when did you get such a potty mouth?" John smirked.

Jim cuffed him on the back of the head, "Since I fell ass-backwards into this messed up life, that's when. I'll go make the call." The preacher almost made it out the door before turning around.

"You know, Sam and Dean are really worried about you. And there are plenty of people – hunters and civilians – that would enjoy knowing you're alive. It's just a suggestion, but maybe you should reactivate your phone? Just… Think about it," he put a hand on John's shoulder, and his friend nodded.

"Sprint store's down the street, right? I think I'll go for a walk," he smirked again, trying to save face in the wake of the hallmark moment they just had. They left the office together and split up to do their respective errands.

* * *

_This is John Winchester. I can't be reached. If this is an emergency, call my son Dean at 866-907-3235. He can help._

He knew his sons were long past old enough to handle the family business. He only hoped that they would understand when he didn't answer their calls. He had no intention of answering that phone, not with the risk it carried.

**AN: Writing is hard, and I apologize for the EXTREME lateness with this chapter. **


End file.
